Video: Indonesian Vessel Catches Fire at Sea

[Brief] An Indonesia inter-island ship caught fire and was safely evacuated. At the time of the fire the vessel, the Bahari Indonesia, was sailing near Belitung Island in the Java Sea east of Malaysia.

According to the Indonesia authorities, the ship, which was sailing from Jakarta to Pontianak, West Kalimantan, was carrying 26 people along with 18 trucks and two mini-busses at the time of the incident.

The vessel’s captain radioed a distress signal which was responded to by a joint rescue effort. The search and rescue team found the burning ship at 9 a.m. local time on July 22 at around 18 nautical miles northwest of its initial location according to the Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas).

“All 26 people aboard were rescued by the Samudera Jaya Abadi, which happened to pass by the cargo ship’s location,” Jakarta Basarnas office chief Hendra Sudirman said. He added that the passengers and crew members had been taken to Ketapang in West Kalimantan, another province of Indonesia.

According to local media reports, the burnout-out vessel is thought to be drifting westward driven by the in the winds and ocean currents. The Bahari Indonesia is reported to be approximately 230 feet long and 2,300 gross tons.

The joint rescue team is investigating the cause of the fire.